The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids excessive bails or fines, and cruel and unusual punishment. Ratified in 1789, this Bill of Rights measure was intended to prevent government authorities from inflicting torture methods on United States prisoners.
Today, authorities have created a loophole in this amendment, with “solitary confinement” in super-maximum security prisons being a legally accepted method of torture.
There have been cases in our history where inmates have become dangerous within general prison populations, as seen on Oct. 22, 1983 in Marion, Ill., when two guards were killed in the same day in two separate incidents. This brought up the fundamental question of how to mitigate violence inside a place that contains arguably the most violent members of society.
Some wanted to give the death penalty. Some wanted to increase security measure. Others wanted to move dangerous inmates to an 8 by 10 cell with no contact with the outside world.
That October day in 1983 would ultimately become the catalyst for constructing “supermax” security units in American prisons, where inmates would be held in solitary confinement.
On Carmela Hill-Burke’s first day working at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, they took her to the Intensive Management Unit building where mentally ill inmates are held.
“It looked like I had walked into a lab where they were keeping moneys to test in some sort of experiment,” she said.
The building in Salem is a completely self-contained unit with its own laundry, kitchen and hospital facilities. They keep men on a long-term basis, which by normal standards is a year or more in solitary confinement. Prisoners pace back and forth in their cells, with the lights controlled by guards, and “exercise time” is simply being moved to an empty cell to walk around.
According to Hill-Burke, many scream and shriek for their sanity.
“You walk in and it looks like a bunch of caged animals,” she said. “No one can see daylight at all.”
Hill-Burke says the inmates in the IMU are supposed to be the most dangerous criminals in Oregon, having been convicted of child rape, murder and serial killings. But some of the inmates move from the prison general population to the IMU for breaking prison laws like “possession of contraband.” Contraband can be considered anything from a homemade knife to an extra candy bar not bought from the prison store.
One man was moved to the IMU for having a cell phone. The guards moved him to solitary confinement because they feared he could be creating a way to escape.
He had never committed a violent infraction in his life.
Once inmates are moved into solitary confinement, the shortest time they can be released is one year. However, one inmate in Salem has been in the IMU for more than a decade — any rule infraction resets you back to the beginning of your term. People who have disciplinary problems once they are inside what prison guards call “the kennel” can stay there indefinitely.
Hill-Burke learned about the inhumane conditions inmates experience from her father, who volunteered in prisons. Her interest in prison work increased as she delved into Howard Zehr’s “restorative justice” movement, which premises on prisons moving from a retribution to rehabilitation model.
She started out reading “anger management packets” to prisoners in the IMU.
“When you put someone in solitary confinement, you can’t say it is for discipline,” Hill-Burke said. “People realize they have to at least pretend they are trying to rehabilitate them. But at that point the level of punishment becomes torture.”
After responding to essays written by the 200 prisoners in the IMU every week, Hill-Burke started seeing improvements. Instead of a few sentences, they were writing more than ten pages and asking for more paper.
“They starved for social recognition and attention,” she said. “I just wrote them a few sentences, and they would just explode.”
After consideration from the prison counselors, Hill-Burke was asked to teach a class to the prisoners. Showing up to individual cages, Hill-Burke taught a class to IMU inmates on meditation, mindfulness and creative writing.
“I just wanted to explore tools to deal with the violent social atmosphere they were living in,” she said. “I wanted to teach them to act and not just react to situations.”
She noticed improvements every day. One prisoner developed plans to start a non-profit for at-risk youth in his hometown upon release. Another vowed that he would attend a university.
“A lot of people in the USA don’t know what types of conditions people are living in,” Hill-Burke said. “We notice atrocities halfway across the world, but we don’t know what’s happening on our own soil.”
Hill-Burke believes solitary confinement is a legal form of torture in the U.S. that should be abolished. But she realizes the change isn’t going to come by pointing fingers.
“It’s so easy to change stuff as long as you realize it’s not set in stone,” she said. “Nothing has to be the way it is; it’s all made up by human beings. We made it in the first place, and we have the power to change it.”
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